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Ben Winch's Reviews > The Road
The Road
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You wanna know what I think of The Road? It's like The Old Man and the Sea without the fish. It's a bit different, cos Hemingway doesn't put the boy in the boat. But let's say he did. So the old man and the boy just sail across the sea to the village - or to a new village - avoiding some sharks, maybe a jellyfish or two, and catching a dolphin or a flying fish for dinner, but basically just floating across the surface and discussing what they see along the way, no marlin in tow, nothing at stake. The Road is extreme in that way: nothing happens. They glimpse those living corpses kept by cannibals for meat and then... they move on. And the fact that the living dead are kept in a cellar fits my analogy: almost something breaks the surface - the shark's fin appears - but not quite. There's no interaction. Ever seen Wim Wender's Wings of Desire? In that movie the protagonists were angels, invisible to modern Berlin, wandering and watching, but even then one of them had to become human in order to propel the story - otherwise where's the point, except that Berlin - or Armageddon, or the Gulf Stream - makes a great back-projection. Me, I need the marlin, to 'take it to that other level'. The marlin's the poetry! Aside from which, hasn't this post-apocalyptic thing been done to death? Another reviewer compares The Road unfavourably with Platonov's Soul and I think he's right: you don't need to posit a nuclear attack to put your characters through these kinds of trials; at any one time there are people living like this across the world, and consequently there are writers far more qualified than McCarthy to tell us what it's like. Oh yeah, and the language? It was impressive, if Hemingway-esque.
(A confession: this is the only McCarthy novel I've finished. Not that I've really thrown myself into the other couple I started - I was more just browsing for future reference. But when recently I tried Blood Meridian again I thought I detected this same flatness - the impossibility of any real interaction - and I gave up after two chapters. Again, I didn't try that hard, and I have to admit there's a side of me - maybe perverse - that doesn't want to read someone so universally acclaimed, that figures, well, that territory's been explored, I wanna go further off the beaten track. That said, I suspect I'll try again at some point. But so far I'm not impressed.)
(A confession: this is the only McCarthy novel I've finished. Not that I've really thrown myself into the other couple I started - I was more just browsing for future reference. But when recently I tried Blood Meridian again I thought I detected this same flatness - the impossibility of any real interaction - and I gave up after two chapters. Again, I didn't try that hard, and I have to admit there's a side of me - maybe perverse - that doesn't want to read someone so universally acclaimed, that figures, well, that territory's been explored, I wanna go further off the beaten track. That said, I suspect I'll try again at some point. But so far I'm not impressed.)
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rated it 5 stars
Oct 02, 2012 03:52AM
Most people cannot read BLOOD MERIDIAN, they just like to have the book sitting prettily on their shelf. McCarthy labored in anonymity and almost poverty for most of his life until critics like Harold Bloom and an editor named Gordon Lish began singing his praises. Only after the mainstream success of ALL THE PRETTY HORSES (and a film by that title) made McCarthy a household name did the rest of his less accessible books such as BM and COG become "universally acclaimed". McCarthy has earned the acclaim he has been given, even by those who cannot read him. He is hard to read, and it is doubtful that many of his typical fans have read him themselves, but still lie when they say they do. At least, that is how I see it. I wouldn't call it fun to read his work and I confess I have only read each book one time and do not know when or if I shall return for a second helping.
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Mike, I still haven't decided whether or not the boy got eaten by his new friends or not. One of the very upsetting things about this book for me. Are people good or not? I think not, but I am still not sure. I am glad Cormac wrote a book that not only the masses could handle reading, but still was well-written enough for those of us who come to expect so much from this great writer.
Platonov's Soul is exquisite. And I had the same reaction to Blood Meridian. Despite all the praise, I found it excruciatingly boring. That was the only McCarthy I've ever given a go, so I can't judge his other stuff. BM just didn't connect with me.
On a good day I have the same sentiments regarding the nice family, but on darker days I remember The Judge in BM and feel something not so nice occurred to the forewarned kid.
You are probably correct in your analysis. And I would wholly prefer that idea over mine.
Great review, Ben, especially for 'Old man and the Sea' fans. I love this line: Me, I need the marlin, to 'take it to that other level'. The marlin's the poetry!It's interesting that all the comments here are from men.
I read the Border Trilogy ten or fifteen years ago when I had less time to read challenging literature than I do now but I really admired all three books and didn't find them challenging at all. I'm sure I'd have given them five stars if I'd been on goodreads. The world McCarthy described was unfamiliar to me, but I could still relate to it. There was a lot of violence too but I didn't feel it was out of place, it seemed to go with the territory. I had the same reaction to the film version of 'No Country for Old Men' (I didn't read the book), the violence in it was never gratuitous, as in for example Tarantino's earlier movies.
I have not read 'The Road' as I mostly avoid post-apocalyptic scenarios.
Thanks for the comments, guys...M., re McCarthy's acclaim, it's not that I think he didn't earn it or that there was never a time when he wasn't well-known, but now that he is so well-known I just have less curiosity than I might have had otherwise. Part of me thinks, hell, I'll absorb him by osmosis anyway. As I say, it may be perverse, but I'm funny that way.
Mike, I knew that line 'nothing at stake' would be misunderstood, and of course there's something at stake for the characters - theoretically, they could die at any moment. But it all does seem very theoretical. With that marlin, you could see it being hacked to shreds by sharks, and the blood seeping out attracting more sharks, and the old man attacking them to keep them away. I mean, you know, it doesn't take much to create a situation in which your characters' lives are theoretically at stake, but to give it three dimensions... If I drew a diagram of the forces visibly/tangibly at work in The Old Man and The Road the latter would be a whole lot less intricate. Unless I'm missing something.
Fionnuala, the main thing I find challenging about McCarthy so far is just this flatness - the boredom level. Nor do I find the violence gratuitous (not in Tarantino's early movies either) - in fact that's one part of McCarthy I'm mildly curious about. But only mildly.
Geoff, thanks for the support!
I don't think we're talking on the same wavelength here Mike. For now, I'm talking in purely technical terms: I'm looking at these books as if they were machines, with cogs and components driving them, and whether the love between the father and son is palpable or the attack on the marlin is ironic, I'm just saying there were more components operating in The Old Man, at least as far as I can see. Sure, the father and son may love each other, and that part may be moving, but it's as if the apocalypse is a back-projection - they interact with each other but not with it. You could argue that this doesn't matter to the book and you might be right, but it troubled me.
To put it another way, McCarthy's plot seems entirely episodic - nothing that happens earlier impacts on anything later. The cogs may - theoretically - be there, but they're not meshing. Some evil-doers appear; the father and son hide; the evil-doers disappear. To me, this seemed a failure on McCarthy's part to fully explore the possibilities of the world he'd created.And we're not guilty of bringing something to novels; that's what makes novels live!
That said, I don't have children so I may well have missed a lot of the emotional content of The Road.
... Sorry, I missed that comment. A back-projection is used in movies so they can film on a stage with a setting projected on the wall behind them. To me, it's as if McCarthy's characters are on a stage, and the setting is just a 2 dimensional projection.
Man, even if I agree The Old Man is that simple, it still beats father and son need to get to the coast, father and son get to the coast. It's got that one extra, see. Like in Spinal Tap - it goes up to 11! Like I said, it's all about the marlin. Re the Reader's Response stuff, I get you - I'm just saying 'guilty' ain't the right word. Without us readers bringing something to the novel, the novel dies!
That sounds great. I love simple things like that. And I'm not criticising that back-projection effect per se - in some contexts it's great when things seem slightly unreal.
My attraction to any of Cormac Mccarthy's work is found in the language, the way the sentences are structured, the rhythm, the music, and less about any meaning or technical/plot structure stuff you guys seem to focus on. The acclaim today for his work I think is based on his being anointed by certain somebody's and films being made of his work for mainstream consumption. I doubt many are reading him the way he originally intended. My greatest concern for him now is if he will continue to write challenging and quality work or will he make every effort to provide for his son's future comforts by making his words/story more accessible to the herd?
1000 pardons, gents, if you're still out there. I had a little holiday in the bush and didn't have the chance to get back to this thread. Re this question of plot, it's funny, all this anti-plot broohaha that seems to be the rage on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ â€� in my dark moments I wonder if it's just the fashionable, so-called intellectual thing to say. Not that I'm accusing you of saying it to be fashionable, M.; you put it very mildly, as a matter of personal taste, and make it specific to your appreciation of McCarthy, and fair enough. But others seem to spit it with disgust, as if with a loud 'harumph!', as if only a philistine would care about plot. Me, I care about it in the same way I care about all the other possible devices for telling a story or perpetrating a fiction: they're all useful in their place, and for a writer to forsake one because it is supposedly beneath him or her just seems the height of pretentiousness to me. So often that kind of defence seems an excuse: very likely many 'literary' writers don't plot because they can't, and of course this is the common criticism levelled against them by their 'genre-writing' counterparts, which maybe accounts for their defensiveness. My problem with The Road is not simply that the plot is anorexic â€� this doesn't bother me in Thomas Bernhard, or Robert Walser, or Javier Marias. My problem is that The Road is entirely scene â€� we are in real-time with this man and this boy, basically in what could be a movie script, but a movie in which nothing happens, no-one enters or leaves the frame, the landscape and secondary characters basically just scroll by as if on a treadmill. In other words, it's the type of treatment that seems to be crying out for a plot! In Bernhard or Walser or Marias the lack of the plot is not felt because the play of language and thoughts and occasional scenes is so consuming. But to me, The Road is unbalanced, and partly as a consequence of this as an exploration of anything much it seems half-assed to me, almost as if (dare I say it) McCarthy saved its best parts for the sequel. But I didn't dislike it; I just think it's overrated and wonder how anyone could not feel at least a tiny bit frustrated by it.
I was more frustrated by The Border Trilogy where plot was more the main course and his typically beautiful language and structure of sentences were not enough important. I was glad when he went back to language being the emphasis in The Road, but I am not opposed at all Ben to your point of view regarding your anorexic response to the plot. And thanks for reading my response to all the above the way I intended it. I would not want to come off as pretentious. Not my cup of tea.
Right on, and thanks for warning me about The Border Trilogy. I vaguely tried to start that one too and it kinda smelt fishy. I think I will try again with Blood Meridian, unless you suggest something else? Sutree maybe?
Suttree is very good, and long. My personal favorite is Child of God. It was the McCarthy title I first introduced my son to back when he had just turned seventeen and the night before had been caught doing graffiti and went to jail for it. He read it during a seven hour family road trip. Couldn't put it down and I think sold him on reading good literature and maybe staying out of jail.
Wow OK thanks for the tip - never would have thought of starting there. Will take a look. And here's hoping your son stays out of the clink.
He is twenty-eight now, a professional photographer working out of Brooklyn, NY. He does have a problem with cops though after having a gun pointed at him as a kid. But we get a few laughs out of it from time to time.
Man, I have a problem with cops too, after being hassled too many times for nothing except being an intimidatingly (in their eyes) dressed nightowl. As the song says, 'F**k da Police'. I mean, I hear in the old days there were some good ones around, but speaking as an Australian all I see now are naive/scared 20-year old gym bunnies in wrap-around sunglasses pretending to be soldiers and cynical old c**ts bullying them, me and anyone in between, while leering at the young police-women who, while being the only reasonable members of the force, seem frankly out of their depth. Excuse the rant but I'm 40 years old and I'm more scared of the cops than the criminals - f**king poor state of affairs. Clearly I ain't quite ready to laugh about it.
(Never had a gun pointed at me though, must admit.)
my son's partner in crime had one of the guns pressed into his head, threatened, and then the two dicks had the boys sit in the cop car for hours before taking them downtown to book them, call the parents of the juveniles, and we bad parents come get them out of jail. the cops were trying to make a positive change in the young mens lives, but all they really did was spread more hate. i understand. bad way to have to live.
Sounds awful. And I'm probably over-reacting to my experiences - it doesn't happen often. But what galled me is that when it happened 4 times in one year a few years back it was only because I was living in a rich part of town for a change - but I mean only a few streets from the grimy part. Why don't they just build a fucking wall?
i really cannot imagine you looking bad enough, or outrageous enough to have some need to harass you.
Man, I was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with a beanie under it - it was cold. And I was walking home from work (in the same neighbourhood) at 1:00 am on a Sunday - no-one else around. And I tend towards skinniness so maybe I looked like a drug user. That happened 3 times. Then one day in winter I had a cold and was rugged up again in the middle of the day, hurrying to work cos I was late. Wearing fingerless gloves. And 2 cops stop me on the street in full view of my neighbours and make me wait while they phone the station with my ID. Why? Someone had had her bag snatched in a nearby suburb by a 'tall guy wearing a hoody and fingerless gloves'.
i'm smiling but i know it wasn't funny. probably why i stay, for the most part, inside. i do resemble a homeless person, but i am pretty big and i look a little scary so nobody really messes with me, thank goodness, cuz i couldn't fight my way out of a paper bag these days. but it does make it hard to make new friends.
Ah smile away - wasn't funny to me, is all. Thing is, cos I'm not much of a fighter either and as I was picked on by the thugs in high school I always felt like it was best to look a bit streetwise to keep those guys away from me and/or earn their respect. But none of those guys have bothered me for so long, even in places like Detroit or Manchester where things are a bit more anarchic. But the Aussie cops - ugh! Bourgeois hell.
